Charlotte
protests: North Carolina governor declares state of emergency
Second
night of unrest rocks the city following the fatal police shooting of
Keith Scott, a black man
Matthew
Teague in Charlotte, North Carolina
@MatthewTeague
Thursday
22 September 2016 06.26 BST
Violence
and confusion has spread across Charlotte after a second night of
protests was interrupted by gunfire when one protester shot another.
North
Carolina governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency on
Wednesday, and called for help from the National Guard and the
Highway Patrol.
The demonstrations
started on Tuesday after police shot and killed a black man.
Late on Wednesday
night crowds gathered at the site of the protester’s shooting, and
pulled clay planters from city flowerbeds to throw at police. Dirt
from the pots mixed with the wounded protester’s blood on the
sidewalk, trampled by the opposing ranks of police and protesters.
Initially city
officials said the man had died from the gunfire, but later reversed
to say he was alive but critically wounded.
Protesters held
signs that read “release the tape”, referring to police video of
the shooting that started the protests on Tuesday.
Police shot and
killed Keith Scott, a black man, in the parking lot of an apartment
complex where he lived on the east side of the city. Mayor Jennifer
Roberts’s spokesman said she would review the video footage on
Thursday, but has no plans to release it.
The new shooting on
Wednesday night took place in an upscale section of Charlotte’s
business district called Uptown, and a few protesters looted stores
as crowds paced the streets.
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Robert Noble, 48,
and his wife were finishing dinner at a restaurant called City Smoke
when they saw a wave of protesters surge past the building’s glass
front. “Then a brick came flying through the window,” he said.
Staff and patrons evacuated through a back corridor, he said.
Police mustered at
the intersection where the night’s shooting had happened, divided
it into quadrants and marched outward, slowly pressing back
protesters. They fired tear gas canisters as they moved.
Protesters lost and
regained and then lost territory again into the night, and eventually
started flinging wine bottles and at least one Moltov cocktail at the
lines of police. Once protesters threw bottles police started firing
orange plastic bullets filled with white powder. The shots – which
made the sound of automatic gunfire – scattered crowds before they
gradually reformed.
Police wore the
now-familiar riot gear that has led some to criticize the
militarization of law enforcement. But in North Carolina, home to
numerous military bases and veterans, police found themselves
squaring off more often against former soldiers who had their own
tactics and gear.
“They’re
treating us like we’re in a war zone,” said protester Sage
Lawson, 24, of Reidsville, North Carolina. Wednesday was his one year
anniversary of leaving the military, he said. “We couldn’t do
this to people in Afghanistan. They can snatch people out of a crowd
and just throw them in a van. We couldn’t do that in war.”
A man in a gas mask
who gave his first name as John, but declined to give his last name,
said he spent four years in the Marines, stationed at Camp Lejeune in
North Carolina. “I’m still serving my country,” he said,
sounding distant and muffled through the mask. He stood just a foot
or so from a line of police, who wore their own masks. “It feels
strange to be on this side, it does,” he said. “But this is the
right thing.”
Amid the flying
bottles and canisters and plastic bullets, 51-year-old Henry Lee sat
silent on a law chair at the center of the confrontation. He didn’t
speak to anyone, but listened to music. As police advanced he moved
his chair back incrementally. “I will not run,” he said.
The only thing that
moved him from his position was a thrown glass bottle. He stood and
turned to face a wall of protesters, almost all younger than him.
“Cut that out!” he thundered. “Stop throwing shit. There’s a
right way to do this.”
And then he sat down
again.
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